Tag Archives: kids

04.08.13

Make Monday Matter....fourteen

Posted by Christina // 2 Replies

Man oh man…what a weekend.

We went bowling, had a bonfire, and worked in the yard all weekend long. I even got a little sunburn on my nose. I guess I forgot to go all lifeguard with the zinc-blue nose. Did you do anything fun?

This should be an easy one for everyone…in case your weekend wore you out. Even those of you that went out riding mechanical bulls can handle this. We all have those books that are just lying around collecting dust. If you like to read like us then you probably have tons and tons of them. You may choose to dress them up, or put them in a gorgeous library, or you may want to clear up some shelf space for your new adventures. I don’t think this Monday needs much convincing, but just in case. Can you even imagine a life without books? It is so sad that this is such a reality for so many little ones. Let’s help them out shall we.

Speaking of books, got anything amazing you’ve been reading?
What was your favorite book as a child?
Have you seen the “book instead of card” trend catching on for showers?

Inspired by the book “Every Monday Matters“

02.25.13

Make Monday Matter.....eight

Posted by Christina // 10 Replies

Have you ever been really, really hungry?

This weekend I told Tim that I was withering away because it was 3 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten. I was hangry….beyond hangry.

Thankfully I have never known true hunger. My mom worked in a grocery store growing up so we were always “the house with the full pantry”. I never had to worry if I wouldn’t have dinner, and most nights I actually complained about what we were eating. What a brat.

Cut to college, a much poorer-and skinnier-version of myself. You could find me scavenging for home cooked meals.

“Oh you live in town?”
“Does your mom make meatloaf?”
“Does she love meeting your friends?”

Although I was far from starving, I finally understood what hungry meant.

So it is not easy for me to relate to those starving kids in Africa, instead my heart just breaks. What hurts even more is that there are millions of kids just like them here in America. Going to bed hungry every night.

This week, I want to help. I can’t believe some of those numbers.

Especially since I always overeat because I don’t want to be wasteful. I know I am not the only one, I mean we are the fattest country in the world right?

When I was growing up, I was so affected by the starving kids commercials that I wanted to set up a “send to hungry bin” next to our recycle bin where you put all of your uneaten food to send to those kiddos. My dad wasn’t down, something about it rotting. But how great would that be, if we could just send the rest of our fries to someone hungry.

I decided that today I am going to take the money I have saved by not eating out for lunch every day and give it to our local food pantry. I love when donations stay local, you never know who you are helping. It could be your neighbor…and one day it could be you. If we are being honest, it pains me to see homeless people in my hometown…but I almost never give them money. I have a much easier time giving them a little bag of Doritos, and it’s an incredible feeling when you see the gratitude in their eyes. I always try to have snacks in my car, just in case.

Do you all have any ideas to help the hungry?
I’m listening.

12.05.12

The nicest thing a boy has ever done for me.....

Posted by Christina // 12 Replies

Recently my dad asked if I would like to have my train set from when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Is that even a question?

Of course I wanted it. I have lots of memories of laying in front on the train watching it go round and round. And derailments…I had a thing for crashes.

Call me nostalgic, but I wanted this train under our tree bad. Which explains why even after he told me about the severe water damage and that it might not even run I just smiled and said, “Oh it is totally fine…I love water damage”.

Do you feel my senti-mental-ness yet?

When my pops finally dropped my piece’o childhood off I realized it wasn’t as shiny as I remembered. It was in pretty bad shape.

Tim saw how my eyes twinkled when I reminisced about my little girl memories.
So he did something crazy.

He pulled every nail out to remove the old-as-me track, striped the board, sanded, sealed, recovered, glued down cork, cleaned the track, nailed a million little holes into a new track, built a bridge, bought a building, and generally got our train in tip-top shape. What a guy.

He brought my childhood back to life…cue the tears.

We decided on a new little tradition too. We are going to buy a building for our “train town” every year. This year we bought a train station, because we can’t have our townspeople just jumping on moving trains you know. We write the year and a little note on the building so when we are old and senile we can reminisce on the labors of our little town.

I can’t believe the train that I played with as a baby is now up and running and terrorizing our dogs. Need proof…here it is.

Did you have a childhood train set? Any nostalgia going on in your home? Tell me your holiday stories, I am a sucker for holiday memories.

08.20.12

Come one, come all...

Posted by Christina // 2 Replies

Welcome to our playroom.

Well, our non-existent chittlins playroom. You may remember them from this post.

I have been loving the Carnival theme these days, and what better theme for a playroom really.

The room is gender neutral with a girly blue and a boyish red, or some kind of fancy smancy designer talk.

It would be a lot of work to paint teal stripes, but oh so worth it in the end. Gives it the “big top” feel without being too literal.

My favorite thing in the room is the carnival art prints. I love the magic she captures in these vintage, airy photos. You could do a whole collage or just one or two.

The mason jar light you could easily DIY if you are into that sort of thing. They mirror the colors in the art prints so perfectly and kind of remind me of the milk bottles you pay a quarter to knock over. Oh who am I kidding, it’s probably ten dollars a pop now-a-days.

It wouldn’t be a carnival without some lit-letters. I really actually would love to get a couple of these for around the house. Kind of in love with the nostalgia of it.

I would love to make a bunch of pillows and big cushy pads to jump and play on out of this fabric.

The vintage circus toy box is easy, just go to auctions and garage sales. You are sure to run across one of them. And I don’t have any kids, but I feel like you can never have enough toy storage.

Finish it off with rich, red, velvet show curtains to really make the kiddos feel like the ringmaster.

Maybe we need this room for just us, it looks like fun. We could throw a trapeze and a lion in there and just have a ball.